Portobello Road Gins Jake Burger

The Gin King

Jake Burger is one of the world’s most celebrated bartenders. And most loved. The reason is simple enough, except it isn’t simply achieved. Perhaps it’s because he blends an artistry, passion and knowledge of spirits and cocktails, with the bonhomie of a bloke you want to sit next to in a bar. He can stir up a magnificent martini while delivering a string of one liners – some of them decent, some crap, but all funny. Burger is a raconteur and he knows his cocktail onions, which is kind of the key to being a decent bartender.

Added to this he once used an ostrich egg in a cocktail competition. In another he won a £10,000 diamond. And he once set fire to bar fridges with flaming drinks during a shift…. as in making fire happen on metal and glass, cold, wet fridges – which is no mean feat. He has made an incongruously tasty drink with Absolut Currant called the Raspberry Marciano – it has been on all of his menus for more than two decades. He has acquired the business card of cocktail legend Jerry Thomas. Claims to have invented the grapefruit twist. And made a Worcester sauce vodka.

So perhaps Burger is celebrated because he is not only the quintessential bartender, he is beyond bartender.

But even this barely touches the surface. Because, the truth is, Jake doesn’t tend bar so much these days. While he remains the perfect host at the bar, he’s now way too busy running them or making the spirits that go on your drinks – most recently helping set up the extraordinary Distillery in Portobello Road.

Jake came to London from Leeds (he was born in Peterborough, which has a magical lake and a passport office), and in Yorkshire he ‘d helped pioneer an entire cocktail culture, most notable through the eponymous Jake’s Bar. He opened that multi award-winning bar with the hugely successful bar owner Ged Feltham of Leelex, the man behind a host of game-changing bars in Leeds, including the iconic Oporto.

When Jake roamed, it was heady time for Leeds, it could offer one of the best nights out in the country, with Burger rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mal Evans and Roger Needham at Mojo, Skippy Jupp and Declan McGurk of the successful Arc Inspirations and Si Ord with bars like Sandinista.  But once established, Leelex and Jake journeyed south to conquer the big smoke, first opening Portobello Star on Portobello Road, before The Distillery at the end of 2016.

The Distillery was converted from a 19^th century pub and operates on four levels, combining bar, restaurant, hotel and distillery, and since opening has deservedly earned rave reviews. You should go. It’s an incredible place.

In between all this, in 2011, Jake and Jed also launched a gin brand – Portobello Road Gin – which is what’s in your boxes this month. It’s a gin that has been growing faster in the UK than many others, indeed it was giving Sipsmith  run for its money until that brand was purchased by Beam Suntory.

But we can probably travel back even further in time to get to the bread and meat of Burger’s story.  Jake is now in his 40s but you need to wistfully remissness about his teenage years for some of his most heroic opening bar gambits. At 15 he was a pot washer in a World War II themed Leeds bar called Ike’s Bistro, the only place in Leeds at the time where you might think about buying a cocktail. He had a look in the kitchen, but quickly opted for drinks over dining and when by the time he turned 18 he was making cocktails. Six months after his first shift he’d been handed the manager role.

‘Cocktail culture wasn’t what it is today,’ says Burger.  ‘The menu was, as you’d expect, offering drinks like banana daiquiris. I can still remember the specs, I seem to have a weird memory for these things. Each drink was accompanied by a pretty cheesy line, “Between the Sheets – silk, of course”. But it was the perfect place to cut my teeth, it was a well-run venue and the only bar in town serving cocktails.

‘Then I had a short spell in what became my only foray into fine dining at a place called Rascasse. That’s the last time I interviewed for job. They wanted someone with sommelier experience, I knew nothing about wine but bluffed through the interview. Then in 1995 I went to Indie Joe’s which was where things started to change.’

Indie Joe’s was the first ‘cool’ cocktail bar in Leeds and in a three-year spell Jake was helping to pioneer a cocktail culture in the city. When he moved to the newly opened Townhouse in 1998 it was clear there was a market for mixed drinks.

‘That was a hugely successful venue,’ says Burger. ‘I was managing the cocktail bar and we had a following for the drinks. It was there that Ged met me, he enjoyed the cocktails so asked if I wanted to open Jake’s with him.’

Jake is modest, so it’s worth stating his reputation was so strong that the customers who had enjoyed his drinks at Townhouse, followed him across town to have those drinks in his new bar. It’s an affection he has retained all the way through to the present day.

So from small acorns, washing up in a themed bar, to his own place, Leeds domination and then down to the searing lights – or dusty antique shops – of Portobello Road. And now a Distillery and a gin. And the gin has been a huge success.

‘When we arrived in Portobello we first opened the Portobello Star bar,’ he says. ‘We looked at launching something and gin seemed the obvious choice,’ says Burger. ‘The history of London and gin are intertwined, you can’t tell one story without mentioning the other.

‘We already wondered if the gin market had room for us. But we had the bars, so at the very least, we could sell it through our venues. It payed for itself so there was virtually zero risk. We started on a small scale, labelling by hand, and spirits shops like Gerry’s in Soho liked this element of it. We didn’t go for a bespoke bottle which saved us money, and we were pitching ourselves cheaper than a gin like Tanqueray No.Ten so didn’t compete with them. Getting it listed in bars was a case of calling in a few favours around the UK, and to this day it is still stronger in the regions than in London.’

The London Dry is made with Charles Maxwell at Thames Distillery, according to the specs of Jake and the team. Maxwell is a legend, an eight-generation gin maker, but the Distillery also has capacity to make spirits in house and it’s here that the brand sets itself apart, blending releases with innovation, experimentation but also painstaking affection for history.

But it has taken all elements combined to help grow the gin, in what is becoming an increasingly challenging cateogry. Jake has one eye on that, but is positive about gin’s future.

‘Looking at the category generally, there are a few ways gin could go. Look at how vodka has changed, perhaps we’ll see some consolidation in gin, then only a handful of new brands emerging, and may be some will have enough regional loyalty to keep going. But there are those without an established route to market, we could see some disappear. Or it could go the way of Armagnac, dozens of small producers all selling thousands of cases.’

Portobello gin is destined for a happy ending, even so, Jake isn’t resting on laurels. The new bar at the Distillery is full of innovative twists to keep the company moving forward – barrel spirits being served via taps for example, which we’ve not seen anywhere else before – a barrel fresh approach. Meanwhile they are making all manner of other spirits there, there was the Worcester sauce vodka previously mentioned, which was incredible, toasted coffee bean vodka, and a pechuga gin that followed the mezcal traditions of putting meat in the still when distilling. Today you can buy Butter Gin, Special Reserves, Local Heroes Gin made with Mark Knopfler, even a 4% low abv gin called Temperance.

Then there’s the Ginstitute, an educational area for people toe learn more and make their own, a service that is currently oversubscribed with 300 people coming through the classes a week. Jake hosts three of these each week.

It’s exhausting writing about it, must make exhausting reading, and frankly, we’re not sure how Jake does it. It’s never ending, and yet it doesn’t faze Burger, he loves it all.

Perhaps then, this is why Burger is so highly respected. Not only because he is the quintessential bartender at heart but because, in terms of the bar profession, he has done it all and is still doing it. And he’s done it, and is doing it all very well, while still retaining a love for everything he has a crack at.